‘Cherish freedom: Stay far away from Sina!’

Too hot for Sina

Sina.com seems to be trying for an award as the Internet Nanny’s favorite blog host.

Yesterday Danwei reported news that the Guangming Group had taken control of The Beijing News — Beijing’s best newspaper — from its more liberal and truth-minded joint venture partner the Nanfang Group. The Guangming Group is controlled directly by the Ministry of Publicity (neé Ministry of Propaganda), and it seems that most editors and journalists in Beijing believe the newspaper will soon go the the dogs under Guangming’s leadership.

An editor at The Beijing News named Wang Xiaoshan responded to the hostile takeover on his blog with a post in large highlighted characters:

There’s no way to retreat, so we won’t retreat. The butcher’s knife is already raised… We’re going to die so let’s make it a beautiful death.

The post was copied as an image by Massage Milk (reproduced above, links to Massage Milk below). But Wang Xiaoshan’s blog is hosted on Sina.com’s blogging service; less than 24 hours after he published his battle cry, Sina’s censors deleted it from his blog, together with all comments that readers had made to the post.

Below is a rough translation of what Massage Milk had to say about the affair:

Xiaoshan wrote a few words on his blog which I copied and pasted as an image. But when I looked at his blog again today, the post had been deleted.

Now you know why I hate portal websites like Sina.

Now you know why I oppose people starting blogs on Sina.

From a small thing like this, you can see Sina’s true nature.

If Yu Jie [a controversial writer] started a blog on Sina, he would die of anger.

…Cherish freedom, stay far away from Sina!